Are you more like Calvin or Barth in your Hermeneutical Approach?

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I am just finishing up David Gibson’s Reading The Decree: Exegesis, Election, and Christiology in Calvin and Barth. I initially started reading this quite a few months ago, and left off with about 50pgs to go. Well I’m finally winding this one down (I got side-tracked with some other stuff), and I’ve come across two quotes that Gibson pilfers; one from Calvin and the other from Barth (how fitting). What I am going to do, without getting into the details of Gibson’s thesis, is appropriate these two quotes; and then ask you what method you approach Scripture with, hermeneutically. More Calvin[ian] or Barth[ian]? I’ll start with Calvin, and finish with Barth.

First in order came that kind of knowledge by which one is permitted to grasp who that God is who founded and governs the universe. Then the other inner knowledge was added, which alone quickens dead souls, whereby God is known not only as the Founder of the universe and the sole Author and Ruler of all that is made, but also in the person of the Mediator as Redeemer . . . . But because we have not yet come to the fall of the world and corruption of nature, I shall now forego discussion of the remedy. My readers should therefore remember that I am not yet going to discuss that convenant by which God adopted to himself the sons of Abraham, or that part of doctrine which has always separated believers from unbelieving folk, for it was founded in Christ.

Yet I shall be content to have provided godly minds with a sort of index (indicem) to what they should particularly look for in Scripture concerning God, and to direct their search to a sure goal. I do not yet touch upon the special covenant by which he distinguished the race of Abraham from the rest of the nations. For, even then in receiving by free adoption as sons those who were enemies, he showed himself to be their Redeemer. We, however, are still concerned with that knowledge which stops at the creation of the world, and does not mount up to Christ the Mediator . . . . (John Calvin, “Institutes I.x.1, p. 97 cited by DG p. 157-58)

And now for Karl Barth:

Like all other passages, [the scriptural passages on predestination] must be read in the context of the whole Bible . . . and that means with an understanding that the Word of God is the content of the Bible . . . . The exegesis of these passages depends on whether or not we have determined that our exposition should be true to the context in which they stand and are intended to be read . . . [I]n the exegesis of the biblical passages which treat directly of election we have to look in the same direction as we must always look in biblical exegesis. We must hold by the fact that the Word which calls us, the Word which forms the content of Scripture, is itself and as such the (in every respect) perfect and unsurpassable Word of God, the Word which exhausts and reveals our whole knowledge of God. (Karl Barth, CD II/2, p. 152 cited by DG, p. 182)

So which way do you probably go? I’m not talking in specifics, per se; obviously Barth and Calvin have two different theories of Revelation at work in their disparate hermeneutical approaches. But I think what I am asking is more basic than that, and both Calvin and Barth serve as good illustrations of two distinct methods. Calvin follows a more progressive salvation history model (e.g. follows the order that Scripture provides in its “history of redemption” flow); i.e. starting “In the Beginning” and climaxing in Christ (we see his “Two-Fold Knowledge of God” at play a bit in the quote). And then Barth follows a thoroughly shaped christocentric approach that “starts” with Christ (in principle), and seeks to reinterpret all of Scripture through this lens. I suppose a more simple question could be, do you think we should follow the progression of “revelation” and salvation history as the model for biblical hermeneutics; or do you think that we should follow a “Christian” hermeneutic and interpret all of the Bible through Christ as the “Key” (to borrow a phrase from Tanner) and “reality” of all that Scripture is communicating?

Are you more like Calvin or Barth?

19 thoughts on “Are you more like Calvin or Barth in your Hermeneutical Approach?”

  1. I’m more like Calvin 🙂

    I think we too easily forget the different concerns of the two.

    Calvin is more focused on the relationship of law and then Gospel. Barth is more focused on the relationship between general and special revelation. There are parallels, but the focus is different.

    When you see that then it is less obvious that Calvin is less ‘Christocentric’. The law-Gospel relationship has its roots and centre in the death and resurrection of Christ. In his death Jesus experiences God as “only as the Founder of the universe and the sole Author and Ruler of all that is made” judging sin in him, but in his resurrection he knows God as gracious Father by the power of the Spirit. The Trinity is a resurrection doctrine, the One Creator is a cruxifiction doctrine. Both are Christocentric in that sense.

    That’s my take anyway.

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  2. Also, I think Christ in his life, death and resurrection took up the whole of redemptive history. He was the new Israel, Adam etc. He went through Egypt, Exodus, Exile, Return etc. Therefore the choice between following redemptive history and Christ is a false one, and comes from missing the fact that Christ has a (his)story. I think Barth’s emphasis on event is problematic here.

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  3. I think I am more like Barth. I do see that it seems God has revealed himself “in stages” in scripture, but I don’t have a framework for those stages, and the ones that have been offered me fall short. . .
    I love this line: “We must hold by the fact that the Word which calls us, the Word which forms the content of Scripture, is itself and as such the (in every respect) perfect and unsurpassable Word of God, the Word which exhausts and reveals our whole knowledge of God.”
    I think it expressed what I mean when I talk about reading scripture as though Christ is in the room. Too much of my theology in the past was learned as though I was dissecting a dead thing using the scientific method, rather than like getting to know my Beloved One who is always present.

    Craig

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  5. Barth, to the degree that he doesn’t fall prey to the Western dialectic. I like Barth on election and predestination. He provides a healthy corrective there. Of course, I am hesitant to say I am like Barth, for I am not a Barthian.

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  6. @Dave K,

    What I didn’t share from the book from Gibson is that his thesis and methodological apparatus for reading Calvin and Barth is to appeal to a distinction first suggested by Richard Muller. Viz. Gibson is making the point that Calvin’s and Barth’s approaches are birth christocentric, but, Calvin’s is what Gibson calls soteriological/extensive and Barth’s principial/intensive. It highlights how Christ plays into their interpretive work, both theologically and exegetically. So that for Calvin, as Gibson argues, his reading is more concerned with the unfolding of God’s life as it relates to the economy in salvation history; while for Barth, pace Gibson, it is to start with God’s life in Christ as The history actualised in the history of Israel and the Church. So for example: Calvin ends up with a double predestination with elect and reprobate individuals; while Barth ends up with election/reprobation grounded in the person of Christ and God’s life itself. This really has drastic consequences relative to the interpretive work.

    But, I do agree that they don’t need to necessarily be seen as mutually exclusive; there might be room for constructive engagement with both (which I think “EC” actually tries to do).

    @Craig,

    I agree with you, I am more like Barth. And that’s probably because I am in favor of his reification of election/reprobation in Christ with a little modification here and there 🙂 . But yes, I think reading and re-reading OT salvation history through a “Christian” lens is the way to go.

    @Fr Robert,

    Yes, I’ll do that. Gibson engages some things that Helm offers in his book.

    @Jacob,

    Agreed, indeed. Yes, I don’t call myself a Barthian either 😉 , but I still like a lot of what he had to say. I think Torrance is better though 🙂 .

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  11. As in you’re too well educated for me and I can’t think of anything intelligent to say.

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  12. I would favor Barth here. Since we have the benefit of living after the completed work of Christ and the apostolic hermeneutic we must read all of redemptive history in the light of Christ’s final and full revelation to us.
    I also would not consider myself a Barthian in the strict sense, but he enriches all of our thinking if we let him.

    Bobby, where would Torrance fit into Gibson’s spectrum of Christological approaches?

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  13. @Dave K,

    I don’t think I’m all that well edumcated, I just read the book in question and so have insight into the whole context that Gibson is thinking through. I think you should read the book 😉 . . . I know you could follow it, and engage it critically yourself. 🙂 I just don’t have the wherewithal to get into the nitty gritty of it all here. I think your thoughts were well articulated and well taken; and in fact I agree that this does not need to pose an either/or situation — i.e. the way I’ve framed it in this post. But, I do think there will be one way favored over and against the other, if that makes sense.

    @Fr Robert,

    Yeah, no problem. I’ll check that link out soon. Thanks.

    @Jon,

    I think Torrance would fit into the principial/intensive Barth approach in general. But I also think that Torrance appropriates more of a Calvinian mantle as well. I think in some ways Gibson’s reading presses this division further apart than need be. I think in Calvin, Barth, and Torrance there is a “sign” “reality” methodology in all of their approaches. I think the way this plays out uniquely in Gibson’s analysis is that he is really looking at how “election” and “why” gets parsed in the disparate ways that it does between Barth and Calvin. In some ways it might not be all that helpful of an comparison since Calvin was conditioned by pre-critical/pre-modern culture and Barth critical/modern; this can explain the “why” of the disjunction all by itself. I don’t think “all things are equal” here, and so this maybe a methodological flaw in Gibson’s approach and analysis. But I thought the quotes made for a good bloggy question and comparison nonetheless 😉 .

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  14. Here is a quote from Torrance “‘[W]ithin the hypostatic union there is included a union between uncreated and created rationality and between
    uncreated and created word, so that it is in the rational form of creaturely human word
    that Jesus Christ mediates God’s Word to all mankind’.

    Taken from an article by John Webster on Torrance’s hermeneutic.

    T.F Torrance on Scripture by John Webster

    Click to access tftonscripture.pdf

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  15. @Jon,

    Yes, that fits will with Torrance’s idea of coordinated rationality between non-contingent and contingent reality; both having their own relative independence, the former being God’s own aseity and the latter a created one. And of course in Christ these two worlds of Creator/creature are brought together through reconciliation and thus achieving revelation in Christ by the Spirit. Thanks for the link.

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  16. Pingback: An Intensively christocentric Way to Interpret Scripture, Karl Barth « The Evangelical Calvinist

  17. Pingback: Elsewhere (06.02.2011) « Near Emmaus

  18. Hi Bobby!
    Calvin had me (in opposition) with the word “permitted”, as I already had my guns loaded for any mistep from him. Certainly nothing happens in creation that our Sovereign does not “permit”. But this sounds like the whole argument following flows from the unmoved mover. Barth’s discussion flows from what God has revealed to us, in His Word. Barth wins at least by default, if not positively.

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  19. Duane,

    I don’t think Calvin really follows Aristotle’s unmoved mover. Instead its more of an issue of how one conceives of the “order of revelation.” So really it is more of a pure and simple methodological consideration. Calvin had what is called duplex cognitio domini, his “Two-Fold Knowledge of God;” this would really counter any claims of Calvin being a Thomist for example. And also his theology of the Spirit and Trinity, as well as his personalist doctrine of the unio mystica would all marginalize any claims that Calvin was a “Thomist,” he was not. That’s not to say that at points Calvin did not appeal to the methodology of a Thomist or Aristotle (e.g. using the language of causation, at points, and metaphysical/anthropological categories).

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